Speaker Settings and Louness

That is a very interesting question because it made me look at the Qute2 manual and the description of the three settings is ambiguous, to say the least.  But it says the small speaker setting inserts a 100 Hz high pass filter so as to allow you to handle the frequencies below 100 Hz with a subwoofer. In other words everything below 100 Hz is filtered out.

So unless you have a subwoofer, or you are allergic to any bass at all, you should set the Qute2 to large speaker! whether or not your speakers are large.

The reason this is very interesting to me is that my Qute2 is driving some Quad 11Ls in my dining room and I thought the lack of bass was a mixture of the speakers being small and compromised positioning, whereas it was partly at least because I had wrongly selected small speaker on the Qute2.  So thank you for that! Nothing with Naim is ever quite like it seems.....

Regarding loudness, I never found that I liked loudness controls.  Again I can't be certain what Naim have done, but traditionally loudness controls boost bass and treble at lower volume settings, so I suppose they have followed that practice.  If it were me I would leave it off.

i hope this helps and thanks for making me read my manual.  I wonder what else I have missed!

Best

David

I think I may have fallen into the same trap for the unwary - shall check tomorrow evening when I get home but may be pushing the bass more in my Iotas....

Thanks David.  Glad that I've unwittingly been of help!

I didn't quite understand that bit of the manual - hence the question - but you've clarified it for me.  So I'm going to set speakers to large as I don't have a separate subwoofer and turn off the Loudness and see how it sounds

I have replaced a Nait 3R in a small den with the original Qute due to its various inputs. Speakers are the inefficient Celestion 600si (no sub, so set to 'large'). To get the same 'sound' as the Nait (which did not have the loudness button) I find I have to engage the 'loudness' on the Qute - listening mostly between  40-50 vol settings. This way it handles the speakers rather well!

I'm sure that at the end of the day, whether to select the loudness function to on or off is entirely a matter of which you prefer. Neither on or off is "right". This is all about enjoying the music!

Incidentally there is a short article on "loudness compensation" in Wikipedia which explains the concept quite well and because the Qute2 can't know what level of loudness you will experience with different attached loudspeakers, let alone what your ears will present to your brain for processing, this supports the idea that it is just a matter of which setting the listener prefers.

best

David

I'm sure personal preference ia much to do with it.  Having listened for a night with and without Loudness I prefer it off here with volume around 50 and speakers set to Large.  I'm going to stick with that for the moment I think

Thanks for the help and explanations

JSH

I'm glad it all worked out for you.  The small speaker setting removes frequencies below 100 Hz and in boosting the bass and treble, the loudness control can't put back what has gone, so would only boost above 100 Hz, because there wouldn't be much below 100 Hz to boost. This would be why it sounded "thick" to you, as you said in your original post.  If set to large speaker, the loudness control would boost below 100 Hz too.

Filters are never perfect so this explanation is only approximate, which is why I say there wouldn't be "much below 100 Hz to boost" and not "nothing below 100 Hz to boost"!

I'm enjoying the unanticipated appearance of some lower bass in my dining room too. A very economical upgrade for once!

best

David

Aww, that's disappointing, from all the discussion on here, I got the impression that the Hugo was perfect. 

Perfection is that feeling you experience in the time between the moment when you realise how wonderful your Naim sounds and the moment when you start to wonder a bit about upgrading it somehow, possibly with more, and more expensive, Naim. Scientists have measured the mean time interval and found it to be approximately equal to the time taken to play ten albums......

or alternatively, there are exceptions to most every rule and perhaps Hugo is perfect.......

Touché

I've heard of Sound Stage, Inky Black...mullet system...but not Louness.

Is this a Scottish hi-fi term?

Lou Oou Lou.